The Republic of Norman Angell (1872–1967): A Dialogue (with Apologies to Plato)

Abstract

I was relaxing in a café on London’s Strand when a young journalist from The Observer that I had met earlier in the month came rushing up to my table. ‘Is it true?’ she asked catching her breath, ‘Were you at a dinner recently with Kim Philby and the new leader of the opposition?’ Philby had defected to the Soviet Union earlier in the year, and Harold Wilson was the new leader of the Labour Party, and would be British Prime Minister in the following year. ‘Yes, there was a dinner party where we were all present, Susan, but it wasn’t this year. It took place in early October 1938, just after Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich. It happened at the home of Robert Cecil, the Conservative politician and League enthusiast. Wilson was the youngest Don at Oxford, while Philby had returned from reporting the war in Spain. But Wilson and Philby were not the main guests. That honour fell to Norman Angell, the recently knighted writer and former Labour MP, and Maurice Hankey, who had resigned as secretary to the Cabinet in August. There was also a young American from the US Embassy there, but it was Angell who dominated the proceedings’. ‘Angell?’ My friend looked puzzled. ‘Oh! Great Illusion! There was a radio programme on him earlier in the year.¹ So’. She asked, ‘What was discussed at this dinner?’